With over 85% of projects going over budget, you are not alone. Read these tips to help you keep your project within budget!
The first major trigger of inaccurate estimates can be avoided during the planning period of your project. When most estimates are made, people are optimistic about low prices and costs of the project. This may not be a big problem for small projects, but it is for multi-million dollar projects. Be sure to research the costs and don’t just rely on previous knowledge, you will get a better estimate.
As you know, real-time control is one of the most difficult to handle. You have to be up-to-date with all project matters, including tracking anything related to the project. Viewing daily reports on your project can help you keep up with the tracking of equipment, materials, workers, suppliers, etc. The more information you have, the more control you have. If something does go wrong on the job, the quicker you can correct the problem, the less money you will lose. Keeping up with the progress of the project will help you stay in line with your estimates and be able to adjust them when necessary.
Making the decision about when in the project’s progress that you will be done is absolutely essential to the planning and closing out of the project. When you close out a phase of a project, it enables you to stop spending money and time on that task of the project. This goes along with having real-time control over your project so that you can keep track of the progress of the project and achieve closure on a phase as soon as possible.
Reflecting back on well things went on a project, or how not so well things went can help you determine the strengths and downfalls in your project planning. This way you don’t make the same mistakes in your next project and can implement new ideas to help resolve the problems.